


Ink Mirrors

by taylor51



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Background Case, Castiel in the Bunker, Gen, Happy, Happy Ending, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Tattooed Castiel, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 20:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor51/pseuds/taylor51
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean didn't know Cas had a thing for tattoos until he saw the inky wings on his back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ink Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> After working on a long fic, I needed a quick break, and I've always had a thing for Tattooed!Cas. This is basically a happy one-shot to distract from both a longer Rose/Ten (Doctor Who) fic I've been writing and the mounting piles of angst of season 9. This is basically pretending that after the Gadreel/Ezekiel storyline, Sam and Dean went back to the bunker and resumed hunting with Cas in tow. Enjoy!

When Dean first saw Castiel’s new tattoo, his mouth nearly fell open.

They’d been hunting a skinwalker outside of Omaha, and they’d taken it down pretty quickly, only Cas had gotten bit on the side. Nothing major, just needed a few stitches before they could hit the road back to the bunker. Only when Cas peeled off his t-shirt to start tending to the room, Dean was greeted to the sight of inky wings which unfolded across his back.

“You got a tattoo,” Dean blurted.

Castiel frowned, looking down at the wardings on the side of his stomach before realizing Dean was referring to his back. “Yes,” he replied.  
“When?”

Cas paused to think. “A little over a week ago,” he said finally. “After we hunted the werewolf in North Texas.”

“Huh.” Dean didn’t mention it again, though he found himself peeking at the wings as Castiel dressed his wound. They were huge, stretching from the tops of his shoulders to right above his butt, inching their way up his upper arms. They were gorgeous - black which melted into dark blue.

Dean couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed when Cas slipped the shirt back on.

\---

The next tattoo, Dean noticed right away. It was along Cas’s collarbone, and peeked up above his neckline. They’d made a quick burger stop when he pointed it out. “What’s that?” he asked, mouth full of cheeseburger, motioning to the script.

Sam looked up curiously as Cas pulled the collar of his shirt down to give them a better view. “It’s Enochian,” he explained.

“What’s it say?” asked Sam.

“‘Eyes are not windows to the soul,’” Castiel recited. “‘They are mirrors.’”

“Whoa,” Dean said, because come on, wow. If he’d had to guess what the ex-angel’s tattoo said, it wouldn’t be that.

“Why that?” Sam asked.

“It serves as a useful reminder about judgement,” Cas said mildly, and dug back into his burger.

The conversation moved on to other things, but Dean memorized the words, and slid them into his metaphorical back pocket.

\---

“Hey, Cas,” he said later, as they packed up the car and wiped the blood off their blades. They’d ganked a coven of vampires earlier. “You planning to get any more tattooes?”

Cas considered this. “Just one,” he said finally.

“What is it?”

Castiel pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket and handed it to Dean. There were two words on it, side by side, written in sweeping, spiralling letters that Dean couldn’t decipher. “What is this?” he asked.

“Pallava,” said Castiel. “It’s an ancient Indian script. I was very fond of it when I was younger.”

Dean had a fleeting image of baby-faced toddler Castiel running around in diapers learning ancient Indian languages. “What does it say?”

Cas puts his finger on the first word. “Sam,” he says. His finger moves to the second word. “Dean.”

Dean looked up to meet Castiel’s eyes with his. He turned away first, because for some reason he couldn’t stand the sincerity in them. “You’re really getting me and Sam’s names tattooed on your body?”

Castiel seemed puzzled. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know, cause we kinda fucked up your entire existence?”

“You’re my family,” said Castiel simply. Then, quieter, he added, “You’re all I’ve got.”

And damned if he wasn’t preaching the Winchester gospel right there.

“Can I go with you?” Dean asked.

Castiel didn’t ask why. He just said, “If you want to.”

\---

The tattoo parlor was a dusty little place. A woman with a black mohawk and several piercings instructed Castiel to sit down in a black reclining chair. He pulled up his shirt and motioned to the place on his abdomen he wanted the tattoo - on the other side of his anti-angel warding.

The woman chewed some gum as she lowered the needle to his skin and began to trace the words. Dean bit his lip, because honestly, it looked like it kind of hurt. Cas sucked in a breathe but otherwise didn’t move or display any outward sign of pain. Then again, Dean thought, he’d probably had way worse. The thought wasn’t comforting.

“How do you write ‘Castiel’ in Pallava?” he wondered curiously, and Castiel picked up a pen from the counter.

“Give me your hand,” he instructed, and Dean did. He began to trace the words on to Dean’s palm, biting his lip and creasing his forehead as he did.

Dean spent the rest of the visit to the parlor examining the ink on his palm. He curled his fingers around the words, feeling the insane need to preserve them there, which was ridiculous. Besides his mandatory no-demons-allowed tattoo, he wasn’t a big ink person. Still, he liked the way Cas’s looked - wings shooting across his back, script decorating the front.

They headed back to the bunker after the tattoo parlor, where Sam waited with another case. He took the time to admire Castiel’s new tattoo, and got properly choked up when Castiel told him what it said. Dean barely escaped the waterworks with his masculinity intact.

They took a day off from hunting and watched Lord of the Rings. Cas curled up next to Dean on the couch with a blanket and some South Park pajama pants. Dean made popcorn and they munched on it and kept a running commentary on the movie. Sam and Dean nearly came to blows over who was hotter, Eowyn or Arwen. Sam was Eowyn’s corner, while Dean fought long and hard for Arwen.

“Yeah, I get the whole tall blonde vibe,” Dean said, “but come on. Dark hair, blue eyes? You can’t get much better than that.”

“Eowyn is much more than a _tall blonde_ ,” Sam said, scandalized.

“What do you think, Cas?” Dean said, and turned to find a pair of blue eyes and a head of dark hair looking at him.

It wasn’t what Dean had expected it to be. Everyone said “falling in love”, so he’d always expected it to be something akin to a dramatic plunge into the ocean, a weightless feeling in the stomach. But maybe he’d already been in love with Cas, because he looked over at him in his South Park pajama pants and flimsy t-shirt, and it felt more like puzzle pieces falling into a place. A moment like a sigh, like a realization: _Oh._ Like everything made sense.

“They both have a certain appeal,” Castiel said.

Sam snorted. “Like that’s not the most neutral answer ever.”

Dean kept his eyes locked on Cas. “I’m telling you,” he said. “Arwen.”

\---

Dean Winchester was not one to beat around the bush. They had a horde of demons after them, not to mention a bunch of seriously pissed off angels. Any day could be their last, so why wait around?

That being said, he could barely look at Cas the next morning.

Sam was still in bed when Cas came downstairs, bleary-eyed and seeking coffee with the desperation one associated with finding the holy grail. He chugged two cups without taking a breathe.

Sam was still in bed and so it was a perfect time to talk, but Dean must have opened and closed his mouth four times in the span of a minute before he worked up the courage to breach the subject with Castiel.

“So, Cas,” he said finally, and nearly flinched when Cas turned his eyes to him, because seriously, how was anybody supposed to concentrate with him x-raying them like that? “We need to talk.”

“All right,” said Cas, lowering himself into a chair and pulling one out for Dean.

Dean sat down awkwardly and as he did so, he couldn’t help but be reminded of the last time he’d sat here with Castiel - the time he’d told him he had to leave. It stuck into his memories like a thorn in his side.

“Here’s the thing,” Dean said, and immediately started over. “Right, okay, there’s no good way to say this, so I’m just gonna spit it out. Cas, over the last few ...” No, that was shit. Begin again. “Look, basically what I’m trying to say is, I’ve got, uh, feelings, I guess, for you, in a way that might, uh, not be strictly, uh, platonic, so to speak.”

“I see,” said Cas with the amount of gravity one had at funerals. Oh, fuck.

“You see,” Dean repeated.

“I suppose it would be best to let you know that I’ve had not strictly platonic feelings for you since we stopped the apocalypse,” Castiel replied.

Dean blinked. Once. Twice. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Then Dean said, “Well, glad we got that out of the way,” because he just could not sit in the wishy washy atmosphere for too long. And anyway, he could feel the ground shaking, which meant Sam would be joining them at any second.

The rest of the day was awkward, to say the least. He and Cas didn’t bring up the earlier discussion.

But, later that night, as Sam stayed up with his research, Dean crept into Cas’s room and dedicated an hour to Castiel’s tattoos, appreciating them with his fingers, his hands, his mouth ...

They didn’t need to have a big talk, because they’d never been big talks. They’d been shared glances and reading between the lines and subtext. They didn’t need big talks because they knew what they were going to say to each other.

They fell asleep together, entwined on the mattress, Dean still stroking the inky feathers on Cas’s back.


End file.
